Threaded Journeys: Fishing, Hunting, Conservation, Adventure...and America's Future

By Tom Johnson

Threaded Journeys  is a compilation of fly fishing and bow hunting stories ‘interwoven’ with discussions on various issues regarding conservation, preservation, and healthy living.  The author, Tom Johnson, delves into topics about our blue-green planet and its resources that we must preserve.  He argues that

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Johnson
• Release date: Jun 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9780692602645

Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson is former senior editor at Netflix and has written movie reviews and features for E! Online, Moviefone, and People magazine, among other publications. His entertainment writing has been recognized with a Minnesota Newspaper Association achievement award and a National Hearst Foundation award for news writing.

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Chapter 1

Blue-Green Planet

It is estimated that the earth is 4.54 billion years old. The beyond our comprehension dynamics of this time span puts us in a position of awe and wonder as we ponder, study and come to at least some minute understanding of our foundation and place in the universe. The world has been listening to and dissecting alarms that portray human beings as major culprits in the demise of our planet, and that we have been negligent and wasteful as global warming initiators. Of course our presence over the last 200 years spanning the Industrial Age has certainly impacted the environment in negative ways with coal burning acid residues, over fishing the oceans, fracking practices to excrete oil and gas and piling our junk into dump mountains. It is my summation that we all have a responsibility to do our part to lessen true pollutants and to support conservation initiatives that make sense to educated, logical, common sense thinkers. It is my supportive belief, however, that the crucial and most critical internal and external changes to the earth are primarily natural occurrences that have been forged since the beginnings of our tiny planet. The earth is and has never been at a standstill. As it spins and revolves around the sun in its distinctive orbit, and as it continues to exude and prompt violent volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes, our planet is never at rest. As such, climatic change has always been a natural phenomenon. The earth or certain sectors of it may be in a warming trend that will change the face of the globe into the next century and beyond. But, much of this talk is conjecture and not necessarily fact. Regardless, carbon dioxide (C02) is not our enemy and it is not a pollutant. It is an odorless, colorless gas that is a natural and necessary component of the biosphere. As we inhale oxygen, we exhale high concentrations of C02. Plants and animals evolved on our planet when C02 concentrations were approximately ten times larger than they are today. It seems that the earth did all right by itself producing, organizing and distributing high levels of carbon and it’s emissions over the course of many millennia. Some scientists are looking at the potentials of 50 to 100 year weather models which show some indication that the earth may be warming. I prefer to look at the natural model swings than span tens of thousands of years where we clearly see the earth’s tremendous gyrations in dramatic weather occurrences.

95% of the earth’s C02 evolves from the natural occurrence of water vapor formation. Solar activity combined with the complex array of ocean currents which distribute heat and control weather systems are the primary drivers of climate change. We know from scientific studies including earth core samples that much of our northern hemisphere was ice-free during the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago. The climate was approximately 5 degrees warmer than the interglacial period we live in today. Historical Greenland was green, covered with conifer trees in a relatively mild climate. Antarctica has 90 % of the Earth’s ice and ice formation is up over 40% since 1980. Arctic ice is down less than 7 %. These statistics are located in the NOAA GISS website (Nation Snow and Ice Data Center), University of Colorado. The U.S. National Climate Data Center states that the world in 2006 was only .03 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in 2001. When using unaltered historical NOAA/NASA data, there has been no true warming trend in the last 130 years.

I assume that most people born 50 or more years ago don’t remember the hysteria about the global cooling trend that was being highly expounded upon. During the 1970s the media endorsed global cooling alarmism with the dire threats of a new ice age. The reason for this cooling trend was the same reasoning used today in the media to describe global warming—human induced pollution. In an April 28, 1975 Newsweek article titled "The Cooling World", it was argued that global temperatures were falling and that a terrible calamity lay ahead. Our misfortune would include a drastic fall in food production with the resulting catastrophic results of a world-wide famine. Time magazine’s 1977 cover showed a penguin on top of an ice pile with the words ‘How To Survive The Coming Ice Age’. These articles and many others would never have been written without the general scientific community being in agreement that climate cooling was a real and threatening reality. Isn’t it interesting to note that our general media today hasn’t reminded us of these past beliefs which turned into fallacy. In lieu of this past behavior, should we question the current mania centered on global warming? Are the political and scientific blind again leading the blind? Although we now have better tools to predict weather trends and fluctuations short term, we are far from coming to absolute, uncontested reasons for the earth’s ongoing, future shifting conditions. Governments and many environmental groups are using falsehoods to perpetuate myths about the threats of global warming. Their prime agenda includes promoting and having taxpayers pay for subsidies to prop up use for alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power, while demonizing the use of fossils fuels such as coal and oil. Little is mentioned regarding nuclear power as a reliable, basic pollutant free source of energy which gives a big bang for the buck. I like the idea and growth of alternative energies as a component of the free enterprise system. Having at our disposal many energy choices can only be a good thing. But, promoting and spending tax payer dollars in this mix to promote myths about global warming is a huge disservice to the American public and the world at large.

It is probable that Atlantic salmon have been around for 60 million years. They have adapted and survived all of the earth’s major climatic shifts including the last ice age glacial surge 10 thousand years ago. Salmon require cold, clean rivers and they may, over time, exit rivers that become too polluted or warm. Surely, as they have demonstrated over the millennia, their noses and instincts will find other rivers to migrate to and continue the life cycle of their species. The severity of global heat and cold transformations will often dictate which species continue to exist and which ones pass into history. Dinosaurs were lost, but other forms of life emerged. Science is still uncovering new species on earth and in the deep seas — some of which were undoubtedly created in response to climatic change over the millennia.

We seldom look at our lives and the impact we collectively have on our planet as we go about our daily business. Our concerns center on those parameters that help secure our health and welfare — namely work, shelter, food, transportation, recreation and social networks. If we can visualize earth from an outer space perspective and begin to focus more intently as we are propelled closer, we quickly witness before us a blue ocean ball linked between greener hues and whimsical windblown, cloud-covered atmospheres. Over the earth’s crust we see the flowing pulse of river veins interlaced north, south, east and west with many emptying their life-nourishing provisions along their banks and into outstretched seas. Oceans cover 70% of the world’s surface. They were and are the foundation of all life. Their most vital function is to regulate our climate, manufacture oxygen, remove carbon dioxide and purify the atmosphere. Their deep currents, dense in salt and algae, play a crucial role in the massive transportation of energy and food to the countless thousands of living organisms that inhabit its depths. The interplaying water ecosystems parlayed between the vast continents are varied and complex, and we are still in our infancy of understanding the connections that make these natural physical and chemical interactions vital to life on earth. For those who don’t believe in miracles, may I suggest that we are living on one of the universes great miracles. The problem we all share is that we often don’t sufficiently appreciate the view, the promise and the wonderment of this planet we call home. Many of us are ecologically illiterate and fail to collectively engage in correcting past ills and righting today’s misdeeds that jeopardize our existence and sense of well-being.

As a sportsman, and concerned citizen I worry about the quality of life for all mankind as we enter the 21st century. We have an ongoing battle between ‘environmentalists’ who want to preserve everything and developers who desire to meet the public demand for goods by farming the earth’s abundance of natural resources. I am a proponent of the free enterprise system and for the extraction of mineral deposits and other resources from the earth’s crust and ocean depths. The houses we live in, the cars we drive, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, all come completely from or are derivatives of substances and composites originating from the natural world. Where there are corporeal needs, free enterprise has a knack of stepping forward and satisfying them. If, however, these resources are not sustainable or if the environment and its living inhabitants are threatened beyond reproach, developments must be curtailed or stopped altogether. Business can be a two-edged stone. Capital dollar formation with the open and free trade of goods and services are the mainstay of healthy economies and peoples worldwide. However, there is a big difference between businesses that make their living off the land and sea and those that don’t. Natural resources are meant to be owned and shared by everyone, and hence they should be safeguarded and monitored to benefit the general population. As our world population grows there is a mounting demand for fish, water, wood, minerals, coal, oil, gas, and other energy, shelter, and food resources. These realities will spur speculators to push the envelope of expansion into new territories with profit being a major incentive. While profit is necessary for businesses to exist and grow, equal focus needs to be measured towards safely guarding the environment where additional economic benefits can be gained for local economies. Sustainability is often a word that is misunderstood, distorted and overstated. A measurable example of sustainability that has worked well can be found in the lobster industry. By law all lobsters under a certain size and all females carrying eggs must be released back to the oceans after they are trapped. These simple practices along with daily quotas help insure the future vitality of the industry, while maintaining healthy populations of these historic crustaceans. Conservation’s crying word for maintaining what is perceived as a working compromise between consumption and preservation has its place of promise, and some sustainable acts and measures do live up to their pledges to save species and ecosystems.

Fresh Waters

Going forward with actual facts in hand, probably the most important environmental concern and focus should be centered on our dwindling clean water supplies. This alert is particularly crucial in the agricultural food belt regions worldwide where aquifer ground waters from top to lower levels are being depleted at alarming rates to satisfy an ever growing human population. 70% of the world’s fresh water is used by agriculture, 20% by industry, 10% for municipal consumption. Many of the world’s major rivers have experienced drastic depletions. Satellite images are revealing hard core evidence of severe ground water reduction in all the key agricultural centers around the globe, including the California farm belt that contributes over 10% of its produce to American consumers. As the water aquifers are being drained by deep well drilling, the upper land crust is sinking into the earth. Since more water is being extracted faster than aquifers can recover, we are facing a potentially catastrophic ending unless solutions are found. It would appear from this observer that we must find economically feasible ways to create fresh water from our oceans and seas to feed our needs to sustain agriculture, industry and to provide fresh water for drinking and hygiene. The desalination process whereby sea water is filtered through gravel and sand